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Head of legal for Germany and Luxembourg Matthias Meckert reports that the PGIM Real Estate legal team, globally 25-strong and responsible for legal support of the company’s gross assets under management of US$69.6bn as of 31 December 2017, is ‘highly integrated in all business operations’ and is a central part of the corporate structure. In relation to Continental Europe he lists the changing regulatory environment, ‘particularly with the new generation of regulations such as AIFMD, GDPR and the (indirect) impacts of MiFID2’ to be key challenges faced by the team, as is the need to be extremely capable in terms of legal and business ability to make use of ‘complex investment scenarios which are only feasible for highly experienced real estate investors’. This high level of ability is also shown through the company’s involvement in ‘a large number of complex real estate transactions involving Sharia compliant structures, purchases from insolvency transactions in multiple jurisdictions involving international investors, complex joint venture structures and forward deals’. These real estate transactions – totalling over €2bn over the course of 2017 – most prominently included the acquisition of Austria Campus for an approximately €500m forward commitment, the sale of the company’s Quest portfolio for €400m and the acquisition, development, reletting and sale of Junghof Plaza, a prominent office building in Frankfurt, which was ‘one of the most prominent deals in Frankfurt and which was re-developed and re-let in 2017 with a high level of legal involvement’.